[Phpgroupware-developers] Re: addressmaster vs no addressmaster

[Brian Johnson]

Brian Johnson (address@hidden) wrote:
>
>I would like to start discussion about the new addressbook integration with the
>phpgw accounts system and specifically the concept of an addressmaster account.
>
>The purpose of this logic (the way I understand it) is to have an account 
>created on
>your system (called addressmaster) and have that account own all of the 
>addressbook
>records that are linked to accounts in order to control who can edit that 
>info.  Of
>course, the acl system would allow the admin to provide edit access to other 
>groups
>and users on the system so that other could edit the info as well.  I 
>understand
>that ceb is working on some code so that the addressmaster account is optional 
>and
>that function can be assigned to any one (or multiple) user or group.
>
>I would like to allow each of my users to edit their own information and not 
>only
>have read access to the information of the other account holders.  The current
>proposed system does not provide for this.  I could provide edit access to the
>contact information (linked to the accounts) to the account holders but then 
>they
>would have edit permission to the contact information of ALL of the account 
>holders.
>
>The reason I want to set my system up like this is simple, I'm lazy.  It saves 
>me
>from having to do it (also I claim I've got better things to do than 
>continually
>update people's addresses when they decide to move).
>
>Don't think of keeping the information current on a per account holder basis, 
>think
>of you, as admin, doing the updating the contact information of 100 people or 
>1000
>people.  Also consider the volume of information that you would be responsible 
>to
>keep current, possibly without any formal notice of information change: 
>business
>addresses for department changes, title changes, home addresses, cell phone 
>numbers,
>email addresses, instant messaging.
>
>I think you can appreciate why I don't want to be responsible for keeping it 
>current.
>
>So here is what I propose for discussion:
>provide a system config option to use the addressmaster concept OR have the 
>account
>own the contact record linked to that account (and bypass all of the 
>addressmaster
code)
>
>I don't think the addressmaster concept can be modified easily to accomodate 
>what I
>want (and what I think many others will want).
>
>The admin can use the existing acl system to provide read only access (or even 
>edit
>access) to the contact info owned by any single account (or admin by account 
>group)
>
>There only needs to be a way added to prevent these records from being deleted 
>while
>the account exists.
>
>We already have the answer for that too.
>
>The new addressbook calls a addressbook_delete hook for any apps to prevent the
>deletiong of a record (created so that other apps can use the addressbook as a
>contact store without fearing that the info will be deleted by an unsuspecting 
>user)
>
>With this option, addressbook (or phpgwapi) can have a hook that checks to see 
>if
>the contact record is linked to from an account (phpgw_accounts is the table 
>that
>stores which contact records is linked to that account), and prevent it's 
>deletion.
>
>Even if the owner of the record tries to delete it, it is protected from 
>deletion.
>
>So coding for this entire option may be as simple as creating a config option,
>wrapping the addressmaster code in some if() statements to only run if that 
>option
>is selected, and a delete_addressbook hook.  Sounds very simple.
>
>
>